Off-duty policeman Anthony Giorgio was at the beach with his family when he heard yelling and shouting. The brave man immediately jumped into action, playing a key role in the miraculous rescue of four teens!
What started as a fun day at the beach quickly took a terrifying turn for Anthony Giorgio. The off-duty policeman and his family started packing up to leave when frantic shouting caught their attention.
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Roughly 150 feet out, a fierce rip current held four teenagers captive. Good Samaritan on the shore tried to form a human chain. But there simply weren’t enough people to cover the great distance.
Thankfully, God had placed the right people in the right place for this exact moment. And one of those special people was off-duty policeman Anthony Giorgio.
Off-Duty Policeman Comes To The Rescue
The second Anthony spotted the danger, he took off running. He sprinted straight to the water, diving in and covering 50 yards of pounding waves to reach the struggling teens.
Anthony Giorgio wasn’t alone. Coast Guard Boatswain’s Mate 2nd Class Reece Raxter joined the off-duty policeman in the rescue, as did off-duty nurse Erica Shelley and several other Good Samaritans.
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Anthony is credited with getting two of the four teens to safety. He also dove back in for a third time when one of the adult rescuers got into trouble.
Nurse Erica Shelley got one of the kids safely to shore but also helped give all of them medical care. She sat with the boy who was furthest out in the rip current and had taken in the most water.
“Your only job is to cough up the water and keep talking to me,” Erica told the teen. She recalls, “He kept saying, ‘I'm going to die,’ and I said, ‘keep talking to me you aren't going to die. You're safe now.’ And I think that was the biggest thing was staying calm because everything was so chaotic around him and he was so scared."
Rip Current Rescue Has A Happy Ending
Rip currents can be extremely deadly, especially when people panic. Too often stories like these end in tragedy. And that’s certainly the ending the parents of the trapped teens feared most.
"I literally saw my kids' lives flash before my eyes," said the mom of two of the teens, Kenya Nguyen. "It was the scariest, yet the happiest day of my life all at the same time. I was sure that I was not going to have two children and that's all I have is two children, but I was certain I wasn't going to go home with any."
However, thanks to the courageous actions of off-duty policeman Anthony Giorgio and the other brave rescuers, everyone safely walked away from the scene. Because when you’re a hero, you’re never truly “off-duty.”
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The incident just so happened to occur on Mother’s Day. And on a day when these moms could have easily lost their children to the deadly rip current, God’s earth angels swooped in to save the day!
“As for me, I will call upon God: and the Lord will save me.” Psalm 55:16
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h/t: Facebook/Pensacola Police Department